Ancient mass grave of children found in Peru

Reuters ^ | Monday, November 21, 2011 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

A Peruvian archaeologist has discovered the remains of 44 infants and young children sacrificed to appease ancient deities in the 14th century at a site in the Andes near the Bolivian border.

The remains were found near a stone funeral tower -- known locally as chullpas -- in the Sillustani archaeological site, located some 1300 kilometres south-east of the capital Lima, near Lake Titicaca, which Peru shares with Bolivia...

The infants were buried in pairs inside funeral baskets or in ceramic urns near a 10-metre-tall circular stone brick tower known as Chullpa Lagarto (Lizard Chullpa).

The children were buried with a volcanic stone on their chest and are surrounded by offerings -- animals, food, dishes and pitchers. Early research suggests they were sacrificed during a period of warfare...

He estimated the children were buried between 600 and 700 years ago.

The children also had artificially elongated skulls, common among some nobles of the time...

In September Arisaca announced the discovery of the 700-year-old remains of a two-year-old boy at a separate funeral tower in Sillustani, buried in a ceramic urn along with a dog.

At another funeral tower nearby experts found the remains of 12 adults buried together along with food, ceramics and animals.

Archaeologists found sheets of gold attached to the clothing as part of the attire.

The funeral towers are common in the high Andean region between Peru and Bolivia and are the burial sites of ancient nobles and community leaders.

Most are round towers built of stone, but some are rectangular.

[SunkenCiv]

some additional stuff, from the FRchives:

• 31 posted on 12/14/2007 10:40:27 PM PST by Fred Nerks

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks Renfield. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[expat1000]

Is it just me that cannot think of 600 years as being all that long ago?

[mckenzie7]

Our babies our sacrificed to the gods of convenience.

Not much difference between the savages and us, is there?

[Explorer89]

Just a hundred years before Da Vinci....

[garjog]

How barbaric! Sacrificing children in the name of religion. Good thing the world has progressed since then!

[steveab]

Population control?

[Pollster1]

I wonder what archaeologists would think of the site where our abortion clinics dump the unwanted. “Planned Parenthood” sounds like a sick name for what they would dig up.

[fishtank]

Our abortion mills are more disgusting than that.

[Walkingfeather]

Its got to seriously screw a human up to have your mom be excited for your death. No wonder why these guys treat women like animals.

[mewzilla]

I’ve got a question: How do they know the kids were sacrificed? Why couldn’t they been victims of some communicable disease?

[Scotswife]

how do you artificially elongate a skull?

[csvset]

How do they know the kids were sacrificed?

I wondered the same thing. Are they guessing? Sacrifice easily fits a preconceived notion ?

[Doulos1]

Ancient Planned Parenthood clinic?

[piasa]

It's kind of the opposite of the modern effort to keep your baby's head, which of course is still very soft since the skull bones have not yet fused together, from laying in one place too long so the skull won't flatten in the back. A doctor will round the head of a baby after bird because sometimes it gets misshapen, then it's up to the parents to keep it that way by repositioning the baby in the crib.

In some cultures a flat spot on the back of the head is no big deal.

And in some cultures people go further and intentionally flatten the skull. This is a varient of that...the aim is to get a tall skull, so the means of doing that is as follows:

When the infant is very young and still in the cradleboard, a small pad is put on the forehead and one end of a board or slat of wood is attached to the top of the cradleboard; the other end of the slat is then laid down over the pad and is strapped in place. The light pressure maintained on the forehead as the child grows- coupled with the flat cradleboard on the back of the child, compresses the skull, making it taller.

The same thing was done by some moundbuilding prehistoric indians of the American southeast and it is quite noticeable. In the eyes of these people it was beautiful, and they also believed it improved a future warrior's long distance vision, which is possible because of what it does to the shape of the eyesockets.

[Scotswife]

Wow. Thanks for that reply.

I’m always learning new things on this board!

[theodoricruin]

they probably found some marks of violence on the body.